


The Treasure in the Tortoiseshell Vase

by vanillafluffy



Category: The Three Investigators | Die drei ??? - Various Authors, The Trixie Belden Mysteries - Julie Campbell Tatham & Kathryn Kenny
Genre: Clues, F/M, Hidden treasure, Mystery, Pre-Relationship, Puzzles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-02 23:51:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14556306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: Trixie and Jupiter's first case together. A man is dead, his son is missing, and all our sleuths have to go on is the equivalent of a message in a bottle.





	The Treasure in the Tortoiseshell Vase

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brumeier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/gifts), [Taryn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taryn/gifts).



> Tyrone didn’t trust his roommate not to get into his stuff while he was off partying in Cabo, so why not stash _it_ at his dad’s place? After all, Dad and Step-mom #3 were in Palm Springs. Their great big place in the Hills was sitting there, empty. When he walked in, the tortoiseshell vase was ugly, valuable--but just one treasure among so many. The young man took a small object from his pocket, dropped it into the vase, and stirred the potpourri filling it until the addition sank out of sight. It seemed like the perfect safe hiding place. 
> 
> Of course, he didn’t know until he got back from Cabo that his dad returned early from the golf resort after a spectacular fight with #3, a fight which had, everyone who’d been at Drivers and Divots that day was only too happy to tell the media, featured Tyrone’s dad making liberal use of the words “prenuptial agreement”, while his gold-digging bride of four years screamed death threats. It wasn’t until after his father’s body was found in the mansion’s foyer and Tyrone had a chance to look around that he realized what was missing. The vase was gone, and with it, something he’d risked his life to hold on to. Time to make himself scarce.

In the small town of Rocky Beach, a half-hour north of Los Angeles, the papers are full of the mystery of Marcus Lowell’s death, followed by the disappearance of his son, Tyrone. Who brutally murdered the multi-millionaire? His fourth wife, who’d sworn in front of witnesses she’d do just that? His ne’er-do-well son--was that why he’d dropped out of sight, or had he, too, been killed? Could the two of them have been in on it together?--because, as avid gossips pointed out with a delicious shiver at the possibility--Tyrone was just four years younger than his step-mother.

“’Brutally murdered’ is an oxymoron,” Jupiter Jones points out to Trixie Belden as they finish sorting sixty-five pairs of shoes by sizes.

“I know,” she agrees, tucking a corkscrew of sandy blonde hair behind her ear. “It’s like saying you have a terrible cold. Who ever heard of someone saying, ‘I have the most wonderful cold!’?”

They both sigh, more or less in unison, because it’s such a juicy mystery, and they both have proven abilities as crime-solvers, but here they are, stuck at the Jones Salvage Yard while most of Southern California is a-buzz over the latest “crime of the century”. Although neither has said so to the other, they’re both privately convinced that if they could just sink their teeth into the case, they’d have it solved by dinnertime.

It’s made even more tantalizing by the knowledge that they’d just missed getting to meet Lowell, who’d sold a vanful of his soon-to-be-ex-wife’s furniture and tchotchkes to Jupiter’s uncle just days before his body was discovered. A broken hip had side-lined Titus Jones for several months, but he’s gradually getting back into the swing of things--the purchases from Lowell are his first major project since concluding months of physical therapy.

“Which just goes to show that rich people don’t have any better taste than the rest of us,” Matilda Jones commented upon seeing her husband’s haul. 

Uncle Titus is a confirmed magpie, but she loves him anyway. It’s why she smiled and said ‘Thank you, dear’ when presented with that ugly brown vase, privately planning to unload it onto the first aesthetically-challenged customer she can find. Sometimes when he accuses her of being mercenary that way, she blinks innocently and says he’s so generous that she has clear things out once in a while to make room for more of his ‘gifts’. Despite their ritualized bickering, they’ve been happily married for almost forty years, which is another thing Marcus Lowell can’t claim.

As Jupiter and Trixie exit the shed, with the last of the shoes neatly categorized, Aunt Matilda calls to Trixie. “Here,” she says, thrusting Lowell’s vase at her. “Do me a favor--dump that mess out of there, rinse it out and dry it for me, would you, sweetie? Gloria Blankenship is coming in to take a look at it.” She winks. “We won’t mention this to Mr. Jones, okay?”

“I understand.” Trixie nods agreement. She has a chance to get a good look at the objet-d’art as she carries it out to the shed set up as a workroom. It really is awful--mottled shades of brown with a convoluted shape that looks half-melted on one side. Jupiter had pointed out when it was unloaded that it was blown glass, and no actual tortoises had been harmed in its making, but she still doesn’t care for it.

The workroom is equipped with a long counter-top, a sink and a comprehensive variety of tools to repair or spruce up incoming junk. Trixie is about to empty the potpourri into the trash, when Jupiter skulks into the room, glancing over his shoulder. 

“That was close!” he says, leaning against the counter. “The gravel in the garden section does not need to be raked! Don’t get me wrong, I love my aunt, but she gets these ideas--it was a lot easier running the place when they were in L.A..”

“You’re telling me you didn’t miss them?” She upends the vase, then stops. “What the heck is that?”

Something that certainly isn’t potpourri is caught against the rim of the vase, and Trixie carefully dislodges it.

“A film canister?” Jupe surmises at the sight of the small white cylinder.

“No…”Trixie looks closely at it. “It says it’s for diabetic test strips.”

They stare at each other. Thanks to his chatty roommate, everyone knows that Tyrone Lowell is diabetic. It isn’t a stretch to think that this has something to do with him.

Jupe extends his hand, and Trixie gives him the small container. He hefts it thoughtfully. “It’s too heavy to be empty. Let’s see what we have.”

“Wait!” Trixie spreads a sheet of newspaper on the counter-top--in case the contents are loose.

The container yields a small string of beads and a scrap of paper. Trixie picks up the latter. “Lee Roy G.,” she reads aloud. “I don’t recall hearing about anyone named Lee Roy, do you, Jupe?”

“No…his roommate’s name is Barry Parrish. I don’t think the name Lee Roy has come up.” Jupe studies the beads. They’re a variety of round and elongated shapes in colors of no discernible pattern. “What do you think of these? I thought they might be Morse code, but…no.”

She picks it up by one end. “That’s a super cheap clasp. It looks like,” Trixie chews her lower lip. “It looks to me like something a kid would make, a little kid with a handful of beads.”

“If Tyrone had a kid, the reporters would’ve dug them up by now.”

“Maybe it wasn’t his kid,” Trixie likes her theory. “Maybe one of those girlfriends of his has a kid who gave it to him.” Tyrone’s status as a player has been confirmed by a bevy of ingenues. “It would account for the weird length.”

“Weird how?”

“It’s too small to be a choker, even on me,” She holds it up to demonstrate. “but it’s too big to be a bracelet--even an ankle bracelet.”

Jupiter is silent. Having the feminine perspective around is a little humbling; He wouldn’t have come to those conclusions, certainly not so quickly. To cover his momentary chagrin, he picks up the slip of paper. It’s been creased at some point. He smooths it out. Whoever wrote it was using an old pen--they’d needed to scribble to get the ink onto the paper. 

“Wait a minute--that isn’t ‘Lee Roy’, it’s _See_ Roy. ‘See Roy G.’”

“Which doesn’t help.” Trixie dumps the rest of the potpourri, scowling. She rinses out the vase, as requested. “We can’t see Roy G. if we don’t know who he is. What are we going to do, take out a personal ad? And say what? 'Hey, Roy, we have your beads. Trade you for Tyrone Lowell!'?”

“I’ve got it!” Jupe says, grinning hugely. He grabs a pad from one of the drawers, spreads out the string of beads and begins making notes.

Okay, so there’s a difference between Lee Roy and See Roy. Obviously. To Trixie, though, it’s an infuriating reminder of her recent diagnosis with dyslexia. She may have found the clue, but it’s clear that Jupiter is the one who’s going to decipher it. Feeling cross, she dries the vase with a shop towel

Jupe is shaking his head as he looks at what he’s written. “It might mean something to someone, but not to me,” he admits. “There’s an acronym, Roy G. Biv, that’s used to color-code wires in electronics. It can also be expressed as a numeric. This is the translation from color to number, but like you said, it’s a weird length.”

“Weird how?” Trixie echoes him ironically.

“I don’t know anything that’s this long. It’s much too long to be a phone number, even an international number. It doesn’t make any sense as latitude and longitude, or dates, or even credit cards.”

Trixie stares at the long line of numbers Jupe has jotted on the pad. “Can you write that for me in reverse?” she asks, reluctant to ask for help, but equally loathe to let go of the idea she has.

He reverse-transcribes the string of numbers and waits patiently while she studies them. “We’re going to need the authorities,” she says after a moment. 

“I still know most of the Rocky Beach police force,” Jupe tells her cheerfully.

“Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of the FBI.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No. Like their name says, they handle federal crimes. Tyrone Lowell has been missing long enough to be considered kidnapped, which is federal. Plus, this number--it’s a bank’s routing number, I’m sure of it. Bank robberies are handled by the feds…so they should carry out this investigation.”

Jupiter stares at her. “How can you be so sure that’s what that is?”

“Because my dad is a banker. He’s been talking about stuff like this my whole life.” Trixie speaks with confidence. It feels good to be the one who has some answers. “Before I graduated from high school, he came in and gave a presentation to our class about internet banking scams and how to avoid getting tricked. Part of it was about those numbers along the bottom of your checks--routing numbers.”

“People still use paper checks?” Jupe asks, mock seriously.

“The point is, those numbers identify the bank and the account holder. On a check, it also has the transaction number for that specific check. It isn’t the kind of info we can dig up as amateur detectives. There’s way too much security to prevent that.”

“Okay, we’ll go see the FBI. That means a trip to L.A.. I guess I’d better get into some clean clothes.”

Trixie gives her own grimy apparel a rueful look as she grans the newly-clean vase and goes in search of Aunt Matilda. There’s nothing for her to change into--her Bob-White jacket is in her car, but that isn’t going to magically dress-up her battered jeans and aged tee shirt. The Jones Salvage Yard apron she’s worn to protect them has kept them clean…ish, but they hardly project the crisp, businesslike image she’d prefer to show under the circumstances.

“Mrs. Jones, I’m so sorry--may I take the rest of the afternoon off? Something’s come up.” Trixie makes her request as she hands the vase over to Jupiter’s aunt. She’s never asked for time off before; the last thing she wants is to be considered unreliable.

The older woman looks at her for a moment, then smiles. “Of course you may! But you aren’t going like that, are you?”

“Um…I don’t have anything to change into,” Trixie says hesitantly. “This was kind of sudden.”

“Why don’t you have a quick shower to freshen up, and go raid my closet?” Matilda suggests. “We’re close to the same size, I think, and my shoes are 7 or 7 1/2. If you’re quick, you can get into the city before the afternoon rush starts.” She beams at Trixie, who’s dumbfounded.

“Thank you so much,” she replies hesitantly. “I’ll make up the time--”

“Of course, dear. It’s about time that dopey nephew of mine took you out for a nice dinner. I hope he had the sense to make reservations. You’d better get moving!”

Trixie’s cheeks are burning. Aunt Matilda has leaped to the wrong conclusion--but the offer to lend her clothes is a life-saver. Trixie scampers to the modest frame house at the far side of the salvage yard. Shower first….

Finding something suitable to wear for a visit to the FBI is is almost as much of a challenge in Aunt Matilda’s closet as it would be in her own. The shoes prove to be the easiest part of the exercise; Trixie finds a pair of flat, white sandals that she can walk in comfortably, then starts looking for something she can wear with them. Unlike Trixie’s mom, whose “good” clothes are classic dresses or tailored pant suits, Mrs. Jones goes for cotton gauze skirts, long flowing sundresses and leans heavily toward batik.

After twenty agonizing minutes of trial and error, Trixie finds a simple baby-doll dress that doesn’t make her look like a refugee from Woodstock. Bold yellow flowers pop against a black-and-white striped background. It’s shorter than she’d like, but it passes the fingertip test, so she runs a comb through her damp curls and hurries to catch up with Jupiter.

He’s hovering near the front gate with his aunt, who’s waving good-bye to a customer. Wow, he’s shaved and has on clean slacks, a neatly pressed grey shirt--and a silver-grey tie. Spiffy.

“There goes that silly vase,” Aunt Matilda says as the other woman crosses the street with her purchase. “I got Gloria up to two hundred and fifty, because it’s an authentic Kennebec and she just had to have it for her collection.” The satisfied smile on her face, broadens as she looks over Trixie’s transformation. “Don’t you look adorable? That’s such a pretty dress, but I just don’t have the legs for it any more. Well, you two go have a good time. Drive safely!”

“That was brilliant, telling her that we were going out to dinner,” Jupe compliments her once they’re on the road.

“I did no such thing!” Trixie knows she’s blushing again. She likes Jupiter and admires him, but she’s convinced he’s out of her league. “I just asked for the rest of the day off, and she came up with the rest of that all on her own.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, my aunt is a hopeless romantic, for all her practicality. Don’t worry about it. I’have no intention of hitting on you.”

Trixie isn’t sure if that’s an insult or not, but decides to let it pass. “I’ve seen her with your uncle. I think they’re sweet.”

“Oh sure--I can’t imagine one without the other. After forty years, they’ve got a good balancing act going. He wants to give her the world, but the best he can do is give her things. She’s happy with what she has--him--so she sells the things.” Jupe frowns. “Right now, she’s worrying about money because of all his medical bills--what she got from that damn vase will help a little, but I wish there was more that I could do.”

“Too bad we can’t find something spectacularly valuable for them to sell,” Trixie laments. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

That offers a good change of subject; Jupe’s been in the salvage business since he was a kid, and he’s knowledgeable about all sorts of unlikely collectibles. The conversation is relaxed until their arrival at the FBI field office in L.A..

Jupiter asks to see Agent Nick West, whom he knows slightly. Calls are made from the front desk, and eventually they’re shown upstairs. “Agent West no longer works out of this office,” explains a tired-looking man who’s desk plate identifies him as Ken Platt. “but I have some of his field notes. You said this was about the Lowell case? I can help you with that, Mr. Jones. And you are--?”

“Trixie Belden.”

“Belden?” Platt eyes her thoughtfully for a moment, then turns to the monitor on his desk. “Full name?” 

“Beatrix Alicia Belden,” Trixie says through clenched teeth, not looking at Jupe.

Platt clicks keys and looks up, surprised. “You’re _tha_ t Belden!” he exclaims. “The industrial espionage case down in Mississippi six or seven years ago--you and the Wheeler girl were abducted, right? Matthew Wheeler’s daughter?”

“That’s right.” Trixie is stunned that he knows about that--that the _FBI_ knows about _her_.

“I was on the apprehension team,” Platt tells her. “I was busy with the suspects, so I didn’t get to meet you personally, but that was good work. You two had a close call, but you really kept your head.”

“Thank you.” Trixie still has occasional nightmares about that episode, but now she sits up a little straighter and meets Platt’s smile with one of her own.

“Ms. Belden, Mr. Jones, you have my attention. What have you found out about the Lowell case?” 

Trixie and Jupiter show Agent Platt the beads, taking turns outlining their deductions. When they get to the part about the bank routing number, he whistles. “That explains a lot,” he says soberly. “We know that Tyrone is in some kind of trouble with Emilio Texiera--Tyrone’s roommate is Texiera’s godson--but this is the first lead we’ve had about what the trouble might be. We don’t know if he’s dropped out of sight, or if there’s a more sinister explanation.”

“Emilio Texiera? _The_ Emilio Texiera? The crime boss?” Jupe’s eyes widen. “It’s a good thing we brought this to you and didn’t do any poking around.” He looks at Trixie for agreement. “The last thing we need is to get a guy like that coming after us.”

“I’m just glad we found the clue and figured out what it means.” Trixie is pleased with herself. They both figured it out, but she’s the one who found it!

“You may not have heard,” Platt tells them, “but Marcus Lowell’s brother has offered a reward for information leading to his brother’s killer. He’s also worried about his nephew, and I can’t say I blame him. Now, the information you’ve given us certainly increases the case against Texiera. If we can trace this account back to him, that should be enough for a warrant. Keep your fingers crossed and your lips sealed.”

“A reward,” Trixie says excitedly as they exit the building. “That would sure help your aunt and uncle!”

“We don’t know how much it is.” Jupiter is eyeing her.

“I’m sure it’ll be more than they got for that vase. What?”

“The Lowells are rich, it could be a lot of money. I know Mart could use cash to keep the farm going.” 

Trixie shakes her head. “Mart and Dad have worked out a budget. I’m getting a stipend, in addition to what I make working at the yard. We’re fine. But your aunt and uncle aren’t, and there wouldn’t be any reward if it wasn’t for them.”

“You’re amazing, Trixie.” To her astonishment, he gives her an awkward hug. “Do you want to get some dinner?”

“That would be lovely. Since we’re already all dressed up and everything.” She tries to sound nonchalant, but she suddenly has butterflies doing barrel rolls in her stomach.

“Definitely. You do look very pretty this evening, by the way. I don’t recall ever seeing Aunt Matilda wear that dress, but I’m sure she never did it such justice.”

Oh god, she’s blushing again. It’s ridiculous. “You clean up good, too, Jones,” she drawls to mask her self-consciousness.

Jupiter takes her hand as they walk to the car. “I know the perfect place for dinner. They have valet parking--I can hardly wait to see how they react to your Bug.” Trixie’s blue VW is as old as both of them put together. 

“I thought you weren’t going to hit on me,” Trixie gives his fingers a squeeze to let him know she isn’t complaining.

“Not at all. I’m merely being a gentleman.”

“Does that mean you’re paying for my cheeseburger?”

“Whatever Ms. Belden wants.” Jupiter smirks. “I love it--the FBI refers to you as ‘that’ Belden…wait until I tell Mart.” He chuckles at the expression on Trixie’s face. “But for now, we’ll enjoy culinary delights while we celebrate the successful conclusion to our first case together.

Trixie smiles back. “And a toast--to The Treasure in the Tortoiseshell Vase!”

…


End file.
